Duluth! What's wrong with you?

 

From the road:

Okay, so I've been through Duluth quite a few times, over the last few decades... yeah, decades. And never once have I been through when there hasn't been:

A. A fucking detour

B. Pissing rain

I get it, you are by a huge mother of a lake, you are going to get some rain, maybe a lot, that's what you get for being where you are. But fer fuck's sake, could you get that construction done? I am not talking minor, oh slow down and squeeze over a bit, I am talking we are going to send you to Wisconsin and back before we let you on the road you actually want to be on.

Okay, I got lost. And it pissed me off. I had to turn the data on my phone (1st world problems), and succumb to the google lady voice that says, in 600 feet turn left. Feet! How did she know - and btw, I no longer know what a foot is.

Anyway, I did end up finding my way out of there.

I'm on the road, heading toward upper Michigan to research my next novel. Today's trip was full of lonely beauty - that may be the best way to describe the roads and barren towns that I drove through. Everyone still seems to have a water tower. Lot of people seem to want to buy bait. And the trees still hug the road in that way I remember when I first visited Wisconsin. Back then it was to visit my Uncle Pike (never did know his real name). He was tucked into the Wisconsin woods, and in my memory my dad had a helluva time finding the place. I was 17 at the time. Pike invited me in like family, even though we had never met, and we sat in his small house listening to the Milwaukee Brewers play baseball and drinking warm Olympia beer. I think this is where my love of baseball on the radio came from (though, I still do love a live game - but on TV - forget it.)

I've mentioned before that my family first settled in Wisconsin after leaving Norway. I've never lived here (oh, I am writing from there tonight), but somehow it feels natural to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Canuck through and through, and some of the political signs I saw driving made me gag. Still, the trees are pretty, the cheese is plentiful.

I saw a deer play in a grass filled ditch this afternoon - too pretty to be called a ditch really. I drank decent coffee in Grand Rapids, at the unfortunately named: Brewed Awakenings (ugh, really?) I revisited the Deepwater Grill in Ashland, for their Beer Nut Cheese Soup (Nutty Cheese Beer Soup? I can't recall.)
I cranked up the essential Wilco tracks as I struggled my way through a pissy Duluth (see above). Oh, and I believe Dylan was playing when I passed the sign for Hibbing. And mostly, I just drove and thought, drove and thought.

Starting to put some of those thoughts on paper... well, the screen... tonight. Tomorrow, into Michigan. 

Oh and *Note - the above photo is not Duluth! There is obviously no rain, and not one single fucking detour in this town. Nice water tower, though.